Old Times
by Crowded Angels
Summary: Cal/Maura - She bit her lip to keep from smirking, "I also remember a few times I had to translate your way out of a sacrificial slaughtering or two for upsetting the tribesmen."


So, this is crossover between _Lie to Me_ and _Rizzoli and Isles_. Born because Cal studied primitive tribes' eyebrows in his youth, and Maura was a part of Medicins Sans Frontiers. And Maura had that awesome scene in 1.08 with Hoyt where she read his microexpressions. Therefore, my brain 'sploded.

Please give a little license with the timeline (unless Maura graduated medical school at about 17?) and hopefully enjoy. I've come to ship it. Kinda hard.

* * *

She tucked her legs in tighter, letting the row of people file past her. Most headed for the doors but there were a few people gathering around the speaker, shaking his hand and asking questions.

He couldn't look more uncomfortable, she noted with a smirk. He never was one for the attention, always preferring to be the one to hand it out, or watch the effects as others did it for him. She remembered her surprise at learning – two weeks after they had met – that he could actually speak, and wasn't mute like she had initially assumed.

No, he always was a surprise.

He'd actually gotten better at it, she noted thankfully. He was hiding his impatience pretty well, and his answers were less rude or condescending, but he was still looking for the nearest exit.

She did have a fleeting thought at going to rescue him, to say he had an emergency phone call or some other clichéd excuse, but she was getting a certain amount of glee at the sight of a squirming Cal Lightman. Especially after all the times he'd made her feel uncomfortable, those hazel eyes of his boring into her very soul...

"Nice to see some things haven't changed..." she called as he eventually breezed past her, phone to his ear. She held her breath, hoping he would hear her, recognise her. It was nearly twenty years since they'd last seen each other.

"_Jesus H. Christ_," he breathed, his arm dropping to his side as he froze on the spot. He stepped backwards. "Even better, Maura Isles."

"Hello, Cal," she smirked, curling her arm over the back of the seat as she turned to him. "It's been a while."

"Yes, it has," his eyes unashamedly roaming over the crisp white blouse and black high-waisted pencil skirt that sat just above her knee. He blew out, "_yes, it has."_

She licked her lips, failing hopelessly at disguising a smirk. He sat down next to her and shuffled until he was practically dripping off the seat, one leg crossing the other, an arm curling over the back mirroring hers. "You know," she started, "non-neutral posture like that is putting extreme pressure on your vertebral column and could result in internal organ misalignment that could compromise your body realising its full capacity per breath."

"...I have no idea what you just said."

"You're sitting wrong."

He began to grin, "What are you doing here?"

"I had a meeting at Quantico, saw a flyer for the conference. Couldn't resist."

"Quantico? You're a Fed now?"

"Medical Examiner for the City of Boston. I occasionally consult on Federal cases when needs must."

"Medical Examiner... you mean no more nurses uniforms?"

"I was a Doctor, Cal."

"Yeah, without borders, I remember. I also remember a few fun times with that white coat of yours..."

She bit her lip to keep from smirking, "I also remember a few times I had to translate your way out of a sacrificial slaughtering or two for upsetting the tribesmen."

"Nothing I couldn't have handled."

"Mmhmm, I actually believe that _that_," she played a finger over a scar on his forearm, "is my handy work right there. It healed well."

"I have a few others if you want to check them...?" He waggled his eyebrows, the mischief in his eyes making her stomach flip just as it had all those years ago.

She looked out to the podium he had stood behind not long before, the room now empty save for a technical assistant powering down the video equipment. "I enjoyed your seminar."

"Glad someone did."

"Your work is brilliant, Cal. You've come so far in the field, your deception-detection programmes are revolutionising law enforcement. I am even working on a Facial Action Coding System, if only to aid my friend Jane in the dating arena..."

He started laughing, "Really?"

"She's really bad. Honestly."

"And what about you? How are you finding the, er, 'dating arena'?"

She smirked, looking down to him. Those hazel eyes having aged so very well in eighteen years. "Plentiful."

"Really..."

"In a non-slutty way, I mean."

"Oh, of course."

"God, it's been so long," she trailed her fingers over the stubble of his cheek. "We had some good times."

"Huddled around the fire watching the dancers... Painting each other to represent the spirits... Oh yeah, a few times come to mind..." he lightly stroked his fingers over her arm.

"Are you still in touch with anyone?"

"They don't exactly have Fed-Ex in some of those villages, Maura."

"Well, no. But you've never been back?"

"I didn't stick around after you left."

"You didn't?"

He drew soft shapes onto her skin, his eyes not meeting hers.

She swallowed, her hand stilling on his cheek, her thumb tracing a line just below his mouth. She leant down to him, her eyes closing as she felt his breath tickle over her lips.

They were merely millimetres away when her phone trilled to life in her bag, the tone allocated to Jane Rizzoli playing into the silence.

She exhaled, "I should take that."

"I don't seem to remember those kinds of distractions on the banks of the Sepik River..."

"Hmm...no, you were my only distraction then." She straightened up and picked her bag from the floor, pulling out her phone. She looked at the wacky picture Jane had programmed in for herself, her real life hitting her suddenly. "Goodbye, Cal," she breathed, the intoxicating light-headedness she had never found with anyone else playing at the edges of her mind.

He stood up, letting her brush past him, "Til next time, beautiful."


End file.
